Michelle Mulherin (Mayo, Fine Gael)

Knockmore post office will cease operations on 1 May. I understand the Minister will tell us this is an operational matter for An Post, a State company charged with running postal service, but that is not good enough. An Post has not acted in the interests of the community in Knockmore. It is a State company set up to provide a postal service throughout the country, including Knockmore. An Post has taken the approach from the start that it was a foregone conclusion that the service was to be pulled from Knockmore. An Post has been acting like a secret society. The closure decision was made in January and was kept hush until the news broke earlier this week. No elected representatives or people in the community were made aware. There was no consultation. The local shopkeeper wants to take on and grow the service to the mutual benefit of the shopkeeper and An Post but has received no response from An Post to the letter expressing an interest, which was sent at the end of February. Why has An Post refused to engage? If An Post had concerns or required changes to make the service viable all this could have been teased out by consulting with the community and, at the very least, advertising for expressions of interest.

I have contacted An Post. It can offer no facts or figures why the service in Knockmore is being discontinued other than that it has a general policy throughout the country to reduce the number of post offices. However, Knockmore is a thriving rural community serving a population of about 4,000 with six national schools in the parish, local businesses and amenities including 40 community and voluntary groups. It is not in rural decay and losing population, like so many rural areas where no one is in a position to run a post office service. The attitude of An Post is a disgrace. I hope that the Minister will take An Post to task for its cavalier attitude in dealings with the people of Knockmore.

After a conversation with the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, he gave me a commitment that he will require An Post to lay bare the mechanisms and reasons for the decision so that this issue can be dealt with in an open and transparent way. We can then know the issues that need to be overcome to retain the post office service in Knockmore and to give the interested shopkeeper and the people of the community a fair opportunity to do so. Fair play is required here. I will continue to pursue this matter in conjunction with Councillor Seamus Weir and the people of Knockmore who are fighting to retain their post office, which has been in existence since 1849.

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